I’m often asked, “How do you come up with so many things that scare you?”

Easy. There is a lot of mundane shit that freaks me out.

So many things, in fact, that I simply felt that devoting an entire post to many of them wasn’t worth anyone’s time. A montage on the other hand… well, that couldn’t be more perfect. Here are five minor things that nearly did me in.

#259. Filling My Gas Tank.

Not the station I was at, but also probably a weird place to refuel | Photo: BP bensinstasjon, Nøtterøy CC BY-SA 3.0

Normally, this isn’t scary. Yes, I drive a Jetta Sportwagen TDI, which runs on diesel. This isn’t an issue in my regular life. If the gas station I’m at doesn’t have diesel, I just drive across the street and typically that gas station has it.

However, recently I was driving to Madison, Wisconsin and was running low on fuel. I stopped at a BP off I-94. The only diesel pumps were behind the gas station, 100 percent designed for semis.

These pumps don’t look like regular pumps. No place to swipe your credit card; the nozzle (designed for big trucks) is too big to fit a regular ol’ car tank. Gas will probably spray all over your hands. Truck drivers won’t offer to help; they’ll just look at you funny and maybe ask, “What kinda car is that there guy?”

After 20 minutes, I’d successfully filled my tank with 12 drips of gas. My hands smelled of diesel, I felt trucker eyeballs burning into the back of my head, and I was on the verge of tears. I said screw it and got back on the highway. It was stupid and I coasted into Madtown on fumes, but made it. I should’ve asked for help, but instead I freaked and fled.

#260. Extra in A Video

My friend Maggie & I were heading to dinner and ran into another friend of mine, Matt Houchin. Matt is funny and kind of big deal on the Internet. Have you heard this hysterical Nickelback-inspired song?

Anyhow, he was filming some sort of video which required three things:

1) An umbrella 2) A grown man in a blue spandex body suit 3) Two extras to hold the umbrella.

He asked Maggie & I if we’d be extras. Of course, we didn’t really want to because it was awkward, but then we decided that wasn’t a good enough reason to not help a friend out.

We had to act surprised when the guy in the blue spandex suit jumped on top of the umbrella. Maggie & I are not especially talented in the acting department, so I’m sure we look like absolute fools in the finished video (honestly, I think we’re cutting room floor material). But we put ourselves out there and it was a little scary and a lot awkward. #heyeleanor

#261. Write a Letter to My Local Government

Maybe you’ve seen Nicole Curtiss’ DIY show, Rehab Addict. If not, the gist: she finds historical, dilapidated homes scheduled to be demolished, buys them for pennies and restores them to their original grandeur. She happens to live in Minneapolis, so many of her restoration projects are in the Twin Cities. Recently, she tried to save this historic Healy home that was to be torn down to make room for this:

I guess 45+ neighbors are moving in soon! | Lander Group photo

And it’s right down the street from our house.

Now, listen. I am not anti-new construction. I love a good apartment building with retail or decent restaurant, possibly with a pool I can sneak into mid-summer. However, there are literally dozens of these places popping up all over our neighborhood. Parking and traffic sucks more and more with each passing year. And if I have to see one more douchey MF ad campaign, written by “old professionals” who think they know what “young professionals” want, my brain is going to explode.

I know I sound old and cranky, but my neighborhood’s charm is disappearing. It used to be cool here, now it’s becoming filled with shiny but mediocre housing & businesses. So upon Nicole’s urging, I wrote an email to the city council asking them to reconsider the teardown. I’d never done something like that before.

Despite lots of protest, the city decided to tear down the home. I received two responses from the city council– one from council member Andrew Johnson who said he couldn’t comment due to its “quasi-judicial nature”; another from council member Lisa Bender, who responded thoughtfully & explained why she’d voted for demolition. Though I disagreed, I appreciated her explanation. Still, I was proud of myself for writing them a letter.

#262. Returned Meat to the Grocery Store

This pork stinks, give me my money back.

I bought a pork tenderloin at the grocery store. When I opened the package, it literally smelled like death, farts, vomit and prison. No way I was eating that!

I always feel weird returning food to a grocery store. It’s a time-consuming task usually involving a low-priced item and generally not worth the hassle. But this was kind of an expensive cut of meat, plus it seemed unsafe for human consumption & I thought they should know. They were super nice about taking it back, but less phased by the characteristics of the funky meat.

I got a full refund, but their ho-hum attitude about the death meat made me never want to purchase protein there ever again.

#263. Secret Scary Thing.

I did something outside of my comfort zone that I pinky-swore I wouldn’t write about, but I’m still taking credit for it. Hence, #263.

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Comments (6)

As someone who worked in the grocery industry for 10 years, please don’t read too much into a "ho hum" attitude at returned meat. I mean, obviously, I hope they were polite and understanding and apologized, which any service person should do in ANY service situation (even with the crazies), but the shit we’ve seen… well, it is dark and it is deep. Spoiled meat, unfortunately, happens.

Good to know! The thing I didn’t mention in this post is that this the 3rd time I’ve had spoiled pork from this particular grocer (at two different locations) in the past 3 months. I mean, gah-ross. They were super polite.

Hmm…. i am going to have to ask about your top 3 weird returned food experiences. I’ll bet there are some doozies!

Yeah… someday I’ll write that Co-op memoir. Honestly, I would take a spoiled meat return over the four-year-old that managed to dump out a one gallon drum of olive oil all over the checkout area of the store any day. Or the insanely conservative religious couple that came in every single Tuesday and managed to offend someone to the point of tears every time. Or the pissy Waldorf dad that freaked out when I politely asked that his daughter stop plunking eggs on the ground. Or the toothless regular who insisted the barcode scanners were giving her cancer, and as such, dictated each price of each item she purchased from a little notebook. Oh god. I’m having flashbacks.

Just stumbled across your blog and fell in love instantly! ‘Do one thing every day that scares you’ has long since been one of my favourite quotes (though I got it from that Baz Luhrman song, didn’t know if came from Eleanor Roosevelt!). It’s something I’ve tried to incorporate into my life but never lasted more than a few days, so hoping this is the inspiration I need to get me going again! Super excited to read more of your posts and very impressed so far – while these ones might all be fairly ‘mundane’ tasks, I must admit I am/would be rather scared of them too!

Thanks, Caroline! What’s funny is that after a year of doing this, I’ve realized that I haven’t learned much from the HUGE SCARY THINGS (ie skydiving) compared to what I’ve learned from the little things (ie riding the bus). The mundane stuff is the hardest because it’s not a one-and-done necessarily. It’s little tweaks that end up making a big impact on your life. If you want an adventure, go skydiving. If you want to change your life, take the bus.